


Footholds

by Selkit



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Canon, Yuletide 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/pseuds/Selkit
Summary: Some songs are old and new all at once.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Footholds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheeana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/gifts).



It’s been many winters since Ikrie truly noticed the cold. She welcomes it, now, wears it like armor. She’s learned to work with it rather than against it. Snow can bury an unsuspecting wanderer, but it can also cushion a fall. Ice can break a bone, but it can also provide drinking water. And a blizzard can provide cover from unfriendly eyes. 

Not all the members of her fledging werak are quite there yet.

“Come closer to the fire,” she says, beckoning to one of her younger hunters. “Your lips have gone blue as a shaman’s veins.” 

The hunter obeys, shuffling toward the flames licking at the edge of the firepit, his face contorted in a pained grimace. Even from a distance Ikrie could tell his arm was broken by the way he cradled it to his chest. She’s already sent another of her werak to fetch supplies for a splint and herbs to dull the pain. 

“What happened?” she asks, looking above the injured hunter’s head. His partner hangs back, hesitant, as though anticipating a Snapmaw’s bite. They are still new to the werak, these two. They don’t trust her fully. Not quite yet. 

“We were tracking a pack of Lancehorns up the mountain,” he finally says, crouching down next to his hunt-mate. “Elnuk took a misstep and fell.”

“I didn’t misstep,” Elnuk snaps, and his moment of indignation allows Ikrie to grasp his arm and pull it taut, shifting the bones back into place. Elnuk’s breath leaves him in a howl, and his face goes snow-pale with pain, but his arm is straight. It will heal, and he will hunt again. 

“Swallow these,” Ikrie says, not ungently, as the runner returns with the medicine and supplies. “What is your version of the story, Elnuk?”

She goes to work dressing and binding his wound, the motions nearly automatic. Though she is not an old woman, some days it feels as though she has seen broken bones enough to rival the number of snowflakes on the mountainside. She will see many more before the ice finally takes her. 

(She’s become better at not thinking of Mailen every time she treats an injury. Some days, that’s a relief. Other days, it’s a curse.)

“I didn’t slip,” Elnuk says again, his stubbornness fighting through the pain. “I saw something—some _one_ on the mountain, off in the distance. I pivoted to get a better look, and the path gave way beneath me.”

“You saw the glint of sun on snow,” his partner cuts in, scoffing. “Instead of keeping your eyes on the herd like you should have been.”

“Enough,” Ikrie says, calm but firm, cutting off Elnuk’s retort before it can fly. “What did you see, Elnuk?”

“A stranger,” he replies. The medicinal herbs are beginning to take effect, and now his eyes shine with conviction rather than pain. “An outlander. Well-armed, from what I saw.” 

A thread of disquiet winds through Ikrie’s chest. Though she may have turned her back on the White Teeth and those like them, she is still Banuk. The drumbeat of survival still thrums in her bones, and survival so often, by necessity, goes hand in hand with suspicion. 

“What else can you tell me?” she asks. “What was the outlander doing?”

Elnuk hesitates, a little of his confidence faltering. “It was difficult to see,” he admits. “You know how fierce the winds are on the mountain. I tried to get a better look at her, but it was as though she disappeared into the snowdrifts. Swallowed up in white. All I saw for certain was the spear on her back, and her hair—red as ochrebloom.” 

Ikrie’s memory crystallizes, clear and sharp as a knife of falling ice. 

“Was she a Nora?” she asks.

Elnuk shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I saw her for only a few seconds before—well, we both fell, she and I.” 

“You’re certain she fell?” Ikrie presses. “She could be hurt.” _Or worse._

Elnuk’s partner gives her a puzzled look. “Do you know this outlander, Chief—uh, Ikrie?”

“I might.” Ikrie stands, brushing bits of crumpled herbs from her gloves. “I’m going to go look. Stay here and tend to camp, and make sure Elnuk gets some rest.”

“Are you certain you should go alone?” he asks. “It sounds like she could be dangerous, this mountain-specter.” 

“I’ll be fine,” Ikrie says. “But if I have trouble, I’ll signal. Listen for it.”

He nods, young face solemn. “We’ll come for you.”

Ikrie smiles. “I know you will.”

* * *

The mountain is immense, but she knows it like each catch and clasp of her well-worn gear. Armed with her spear and with Elnuk’s recollection of where he fell, Ikrie climbs, her gloves and boots finding purchase in the ice’s grooves. 

She hears the outlander before she sees her: a constant litany of muttered words and phrases, and Ikrie can’t hold back a grin. Mailen used to do the same, speak her problems aloud until the solutions came to her, with no audience but herself and the glaciers.

And Ikrie, of course. 

She rounds a curve and catches sight of the outlander, caught in a crevice on the side of the mountain, bare fingertips scrabbling along the surface of the ice. Her face is set in a familiar scowl of concentration and determination. 

She is Nora, but with a will like that, she could just as well be Banuk.

“Aloy,” Ikrie calls, but keeps her voice pitched low. To startle the outlander could be disastrous for them both. To call down a herd of machines upon them, even more so. 

The outlander’s head jerks up, red as the daybreak before a storm. 

“Ikrie?” she says, surprise in her tone. “What are you doing here?” 

“I could ask you the same.” Ikrie edges closer, though the path threatens to disappear beneath her. “My werak often hunts on this mountain. Do you need help?” 

A small flurry of expressions crosses Aloy’s face. Her stubbornness is a tangible thing, but Ikrie can tell from the snow-marks around her that she’s been stuck here for a while.

“That would be nice,” Aloy finally admits. “I lost my footing on the path and can’t seem to get out of this crack in the ice.”

“Hold on. Let me get to you.” Ikrie edges up and forward, fingers gliding along the ice until she finds steadiness. “There’s a better path I can show you. We’ve carved our own footholds, but they can be difficult to see if you’re not looking for them.” 

She side-steps to a perch just above Aloy and leans down to offer her hand. “Here. I’ll haul you up.” 

Eyes narrowed in concentration, Aloy pushes off the ice, launching herself upward. Her hand connects solidly with Ikrie’s, and they both brace themselves on the mountain, straining and scrabbling until gravity surrenders. Aloy clambers up on the ledge, skidding to a stop on her hands and knees. 

“Thanks,” she says, throwing her braids back behind her shoulders. “I’ve climbed more mountains than I can count. Don’t know why this one is giving me trouble.”

“You’re not the only one,” Ikrie says. “My hunters and I have found plenty of Old Ones’ bodies here, buried in snow and ice. They don’t look machine-mauled. I think the mountain killed them before whatever it was that exterminated the rest of them. They called it _Rainier,_ though what that meant in their language, I don’t know.” 

Aloy tilts her head. “I didn’t know the Banuk were so interested in the Old Ones.”

“Most aren’t, unless there’s a challenge to be found in searching their ruins.” Ikrie exhales, her breath coalescing in the frigid air. “But my werak has made this area our own. There’s a massive Old Ones ruin to the north at the water’s edge, thick with machines. We have good hunting there.”

Aloy smiles, sudden and bright as the midday sun. “So you joined a new werak since I last saw you?”

“Not joined. Formed.” A fierce thrill of pride thaws the frost in Ikrie’s veins. “We are the Snow Ghosts. All Banuk, yet not. Each of us broke from our old weraks, whether by choice or by circumstance. We have no chieftain, no shaman. Every member hunts and learns to harvest their own machines. We are free to do what we will, but we recognize that we are stronger together.” 

“You see?” Aloy clasps Ikrie’s shoulder, brief but firm. “I knew you could do whatever you set your mind to.” 

“It hasn’t all been easy,” Ikrie admits. “But if it were, there would be no purpose. We keep our culture and our past weraks in our songs, but we create our own traditions, too. A new heritage, all our own. The others never would have understood that.” 

“I know how that feels,” Aloy says, a wry twist to her mouth. “Understanding seems to be in short supply all too often.” 

Ikrie nods, her gaze drifting along the ice. "Sometimes I find it strange, the way Banuk culture centers around survival. From the moment of our birth, everything we are taught focuses on one thing only: how to endure. And yet, when Mailen left, nothing I ever learned from the werak told me how to endure the grief. It was something I had to learn on my own."

She can see from Aloy's eyes that she understands. It brings a small, unexpected spark of warmth.

“And what about you?” Ikrie stands, extending a hand to pull Aloy to her feet. “What paths have brought you this far north?” 

“It’s a little difficult to explain.” Aloy’s eyes shift. “I’ll just say I’m looking for something that will let me help an…old friend.”

Ikrie raises her brows. “And you think you’ll find it on top of this mountain?”

“That’s the hope.” Aloy grins, shrugs. 

“If you need another pair of hands—or a second spear—I am here,” Ikrie says. 

For a moment, she thinks Aloy is going to refuse. She sees that same look, the one that so often embedded itself deep in Mailen’s eyes. 

But then the skin crinkles at the corner of Aloy’s eyes, the chill melting away.

“I would like that,” she says. 

They ascend the mountain together, boots steady in the footholds, and brandish their spears back to back against the machines. And though it has been years now since Ikrie saw Mailen, her body remembers the old fighting stances, falling easily back into the dance of fighting side by side with a partner. 

It is old and new, a comfort and a challenge both, and it is a song all Ikrie’s own.


End file.
